How to test Macrium Pro rescue disk?

After installing a Macrium update and creating a new image of my Win 8.1 PC, I decided it would be a good idea to make a new rescue disk. I reformatted the existing flash drive and tried to make an updated Win PE rescue drive, only to be informed the drive was too small.

It was quite a surprise to learn that whereas 250 MB was sufficient previously, apparently 1 GB is now required. So a 4 GB drive was used, that being all there was available. An even bigger surprise was that it only took a few seconds – certainly no more than 30.

Naturally I wish to test it, but have forgotten how to do that with Win 8. I seemed to remember it was Ctrl + F8, but that only booted normally. Using F12 to set the bios, I was confronted by a series of choices that have left me puzzled, as follows:

When you create your rescue media Macrium should automatically select the item highlighted below:macrium.JPG
If it is not selected you should select it.
With this item selected you should NOT have to turn off secure boot to boot into the rescue media.
This works perfectly on my Dell XPS 8700 Win 8.1 Pro Update 1 machine. YMMV HTH

I did consider deselecting MBR/UEFI as the drive will only be used on this PC, and thus UEFI is more relevant, but am fairly certain it was left selected. However, it seems to me that almost 1GB could not be written in a few seconds, so I shall do it again, making sure the option is left selected.

There still remains the question of how to boot a Dell PC from the rescue drive. How I did it before has completely gone from my memory – onset of dementia perhaps – but it clearly isn’t Ctrl + F8, and F12 has too many choices for a novice.

Just keep tapping F12 as the machine boots. It should come up with the Boot menu as this works on all 4 of my Dells. MACRIUM UEFI BOOT.jpg
The Macrium Boot is setup on a partition of the WD My Book.
HTH

Based on your reply, I retried the USB stick, selecting the UEFI Removable Disk PMAP option. (Surprised that your boot disk is an external drive – never heard of that before). It booted to Macrium, but every file I tried failed to open, with a message about no programme assigned to open it.

Still not satisfied that the disc was working properly I reformatted the USB drive and recreated it. This time it took 50 seconds, a little longer than before. There was the usual message about possibly needing a network driver to create or restore an image, but was again unable to find it. This time it was possible to open a few files to ensure everything was OK, but other issues cropped up. The loudspeaker in the task bar had a cross beside it, and a popup stating the audio not working. I tried a song and the audio was fine. I wanted to check the size of the Macrium restore file, still puzzled by the need for a four fold increase in the USB drive, but it was not showing in This PC.

Presumably the image is OK, but in view of the various issues I hope it’s never necessary to find out. It seems to me that it’s not really a rescue disk as such, being limited to restoring an image or part of one.

Are you trying to run programs from the Macrium Boot Disk? It is only intended to run Macrium Reflect. If you try to run programs on your C: drive it will fail as the registry entries on the C: drive are not the ones loaded by the Rescue Media system.

With UEFI you have to format the USB as FAT 32 it won't work as NTFS!

I have a separate partition on my WD MyBook formatted as FAT 32 (4 GB just to be safe), Primary, Active and that is where I load the Rescue Media. The rest of the disk is formatted as a separate NTFS partition where I store the Images. Single device no muss no fuss. See this post for how to set it up. HTH

No, I was not trying to run programmes with Macrium, but when creating an image auto verification is selected, then I like to check that everything is OK by opening a couple of files from the image. When the .doc files would not open, I tried a music file and, if my memory is correct, also a photo, but all refused to open.

I think there must have been a fault with the first Macrium download, as when I did it again there was no problem checking files on the image, as already mentioned, and when I opened the PC today the other issues had disappeared - the taskbar no longer showed a problem with the audio, and when the rescue drive was plugged in it showed up in This PC. It must have been a temporary blip, maybe because the external drive was still connected. Whatever the reason, I now feel more confident that the image and the rescue drive are fit for purpose.

Now that the USB appears in This PC it shows about 270 MB in use, not a lot more than the previous update. I will get a 500 MB stick sometime, rather than wasting 4GB just for this.

Had a look at the link in your last post, which I remember reading when it first appeared in the Lounge, but think it best to skip the added opportunity for messing up, apart from a reluctance to scrap all existing images for three machines in order to reformat the external drive.

Finally, my thanks for showing me how to test the rescue drive, which I had completely forgotten and couldn’t find anywhere.

Macrium Rescue Disks come in two varieties. Tha Linux-based one does not allow exploring archives, as these don't mount into Linux. I chose with my Macrium Reflect Free Edition to burn the WinPE Rescue Disk. This environment does allow me to Explore archives, and to mount them and do all sorts of other things (like pick out particular files and copy the good/clean ones onto a Windows installation where the files may have been corrupted or infected or removed somehow). The WInPE environment on a totally independent Rescue Dsik is what you will need in the event of a hard drive disaster. At least, this has been my experience.

Creating a Macrium Boot Partition is a good safeguard, but it will not save your bacon if the hard drive becomes toast. (Add an Egg metaphor and we have breakfast!)

If your PC or device has no optical drive, the next-best thing is to create the WinPE Rescue Media on a USB stick. But use the WinPE version, not the Linux version. Much more versatile.